Tower Hill Memorial - Photographs

Some 34,000 merchant seafarers (men and women) were killed in World War II . There are 24,000 British seafarers (with no grave but the sea) commemorated on the ships' plaques at Tower Hill. Their names and details are also recorded in the CWGC M.N. registers (volume 1, parts 1 to 8 and volume 2, parts 9 to 16).

Another 10,000 Colonial and Commonwealth seafarers killed when serving in British registered ships also have no grave but the sea. Their names are honoured on Merchant Navy Memorials at Halifax, Bombay and Chittagong, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Their names and details are commemorated in CWGC M.N. register volume 3 (parts 17 to 23). Volume 3 also records the names and details of merchant seamen buried in Britain and overseas.

To enlarge the small images, click on the "thumbnails" and then use the back arrow to return to this page.

Flanked by high stone pylons, stone steps lead down from the 1914-1918 memorial to the sunken garden. Two photographs (above left and right) gives views of some of the 120 bronze panels. The centre photograph shows the main dedicatory inscription for the 1939-1945 memorial, located between the flights of stone steps. It reads:

THE TWENTY-FOUR THOUSAND OF THE MERCHANT NAVY AND FISHING FLEETS WHOSE NAMES ARE HONOURED ON THE WALLS OF THIS GARDEN GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR THEIR COUNTRY AND HAVE NO GRAVE BUT THE SEA

The photographs below show panels for the SS Empire Shackleton and the SS Empire Wagtail.
The two ships were in Convoy ONS-154.

Panel 45 (left photo):
SS Empire Shackleton.

Panel 47 (right photo):
SS Empire Wagtail.

(Photographs by Nancy Eng, ©2000).

Thanks to Nancy Eng for the photographs of the Tower Hill Memorial, and to George Monk for information about the CWGC M.N. Registers.